Facsimile machines or more commonly "fax" machines are used for sending documents and other images from place to place over the telephone network. The originating fax machine places a telephone call to a destination fax machine. The content of the telephone call is a modulated waveform that represents the image to be transmitted. In some cases the destination line is busy or there is no answer, perhaps because the destination fax is either sending or receiving another fax or the destination fax is broken or out of paper. If a call can not be competed, most fax machines will attempt to redial the destination fax machine periodically in an attempt to complete the fax transmission. When the originating fax is attempting to complete the fax transmission, this can monopolize all or partial use of the fax machine for a period of time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,922,348 issued to Gillon et al. solves some of the related problems by recognizing a fax message and directing fax messages to a storage unit where they later can be forwarded to a destination fax machine or high-speed printer. By always storing fax messages in a fax storage unit, the system of Gillon et al. requires a great deal of storage and throughput capabilities to handle large volumes of fax traffic.